How to ping Docker container from another container by name?

Posted on August 27, 2019
Docker Linux Basics Networking Ubuntu
Asked by bitmap

Hi all,

I want to be able to ping or basically access a running docker container from another container by simply using the docker name rather than an IP address. I’ve tried a few guides but I could not get it working. Has anyone been able to get this working?

Thanks a lot!

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• August 27, 2019

Accepted Answer

Hello,

Yes this now comes more or less out of the box with Docker Networks, so what you need to do is:

Create two containers:

docker run -d --name web1  -p 8001:80 eboraas/apache-php
docker run -d --name web2  -p 8002:80 eboraas/apache-php

Important note: it is very important to explicitly specify a name with --name for your containers otherwise I’ve noticed that it would not work with the random names that Docker assigns to your containers.
Then create a new network:

docker network create myNetwork

After that connect your containers to the network:

docker network connect myNetwork web1
docker network connect myNetwork web2

Check if your containers are part of the new network:

docker network inspect myNetwork

Then test the connection:

docker exec -ti web1 ping web2

Again it is quite important to explicitly specify names for your containers otherwise this would not work. I figured this out after spending a few hours trying to figure it out.

Here’s a quick video demo on how to do the above: